potion
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "potion", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "potion" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "potion" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
potion is aEnglishnoun. It means: A small portion or dose of a liquid which is medicinal, poisonous, or magical. Pronounced /ˈpəʊ.ʃən/. Often confused with Putin and Python.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | potion |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈpəʊ.ʃən/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #19,169 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 16 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for potion is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpəʊ.ʃən/. Corpus data places it at rank #19,169 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A small portion or dose of a liquid which is medicinal, poisonous, or magical.".
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for potion, with forms such as "poiton", "potino", and "potionn". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 16 confusable-pair relationships, "Putin", "Python", "proton", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English pocioun, borrowed from Old French pocion, from Latin pōtiō (“a drinking”), pōtiōnis, from pōtāre (“to drink”). Doublet of poison. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is potion, spelled P-O-T-I-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A small portion or dose of a liquid which is medicinal, poisonous, or magical.
Etymology
From Middle English pocioun, borrowed from Old French pocion, from Latin pōtiō (“a drinking”), pōtiōnis, from pōtāre (“to drink”). Doublet of poison.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: poiton,potino,potionn,potoin,pottion,ppotion,ptoion
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for potion
Misspelling Variants of "potion"
Frequency rank: #19,169 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: